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A few of us lucky food bloggers got a chance last weekend to visit Brian Malarkey’s newest venture, Herb & Eatery – an extension, really, of his award-winning restaurant Herb & Wood.

Herb & Eatery is the front of the store and the Herb & Wood dining room is in the back.

Herb & Wood has already won a ton of accolades for being the most stylish and sexy new restaurant in town- and now with Herb & Eatery, you can take all of the goodness home with you.

Jars of goodness at Herb & Eatery

Herb & Eatery essentially has all of the goodies that make chefs (and humble food bloggers) swoon. Brian Malarkey gave us a sweet tour of the chef’s shop and restaurant before filling us with food.

Almost everything is made in-house. You like the tapenade or the salsa that was part of your (award-winning) dinner at Herb & Wood? Come next door and you can buy a jar of it to take home.

Want some fresh herbs, fresh-baked croissants, imported cheeses, frozen ice cream cookie sandwiches, or even the designer flatware you used? It’s all for sale next door.

View of the pastries from the second floor

Herb & Wood was the first phase of this project; and this awesome shop is phase two. They have already expanded the upstairs area into a lounge for private gatherings; and the adjacent space into an art gallery and private event room.

Art on display in the private event space next door to Herb & Eatery

In addition to a drool-worthy “chef’s shop,” a host of housemade pastries are available, every one of them made around-the-clock by pastry chef extraordinaire Adrian Mendoza.

And don’t forget the house-made kombucha.

Speaking of croissants, YOU WANT THESE CROISSANTS.

They are made fresh daily (and sell out really fast) with tons of specialty imported butter and they are said to rival the best Parisian café. We enjoyed them plain, stuffed with chocolate, stuffed with meat and cheese, and made into these lovely breakfast sandwiches.

This is the Maple Croissant: filled with maple pork sausage, a fried egg, gruyere cheese, arugula and aioli.

We also got to sample a few of the baked eggs dishes: Brian was very exited about these … they take a loaf (bread) pan and fill it with scrambled eggs and potato, then bake it, slice it, and cover each slice in one of five different topping combinations.

This is the one with mushrooms, Humboldt goat cheese, herbs, kale, and crème fraiche. It was heavenly.

And this is the baked egg with tomato, capers, olives, basil pesto and lemon zest:

We weren’t even close to being finished. Next we got to sample a few of the items from the All Day Menu (breakfast is only served from 8-11 a.m.).

One of my favorites was the poke & avocado salad, with kimchi, cilantro, housemade ponzu and mixed greens:

… but I also loved the smoked curry chicken and cashews salad with kale and cilantro.

We also sampled some of their amazing sandwiches, like the banh mi with chicken sausage, papaya, and chicken liver pate:

I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise given the amazing reputation that Malarkey enjoys in this town, but LITERALLY everything they have is amazingly delicious.

This isn’t one of those places where you might drop in for a breakfast pastry because they have a good baker, but not come for lunch or dinner because other items aren’t as good. Here, everything is good. You can tell that the chefs and employees there take food quality seriously and want you to experience the best. I’ll definitely be back!

I was lucky enough this week to be among the first to experience Crazee Burger at their new digs, at the intersection of 30th and Lincoln in North Park — the new location just had it’s “soft” opening on June 17.

I have to admit that I came late to the party — I never visited the old location, and the only time I ever had Crazee Burger previously was at the Mission Valley Craft Beer and Food Festival in April. My boyfriend and I took complete advantage of the “unlimited” tastings and had — let’s say, more than one — of the Kobe beef, wild boar and buffalo sliders.

They were awesome.

One of my favorite things about Crazee Burger — come on, everyone loves the fact that you can eat things like elk, camel, kangaroo and ostrich, in addition to their many specialty beef burgers — is their sauces. The sliders we enjoyed at the festival were topped with creamy horseradish and chipotle, and their many specialty burgers are topped with inventive sauces perfect for pairing with rare meats.

For example, their Gator burger is topped with a curry fruit tapenade, their duck burger features a white wine/hoisin reduction, and the turkey burger is served with an orange marmalade glaze. The Cajun burger I enjoyed (which has a spicy blackened beef patty and sauteed onions) is topped with a delicious – but spicy! – smoked chili sauce.

If “exotic” elk, duck, buffalo and ostrich isn’t your bag, you can choose from a huge number of specialty burgers, all made with top-notch organic beef. I basically need to find an excuse to come back here at least 10 more times to experience all of these.

The Chubby Charlie especially has me drooling … especially if you follow Crazee Burger’s Instagram feed. And the El Jacobo? I love chorizo. The Texas?! I love BBQ sauce.

And the cheeses … so many cheeses.

So if you’re craving the perfect burger for whatever mood you’re in, head down to visit the new location at 30th and Lincoln. In addition to a bigger, and by all accounts, better spot, the new menus will have duck burgers and elk burgers.

Be sure to let me know in the comments or on social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) about your favorite Crazee Burger burger. Happy eating!

Yesterday I got the chance to visit a fabulous new farm-to-table restaurant in La Jolla — Green Acre at Campus Pointe, run by celebrity chef Brian Malarkey.

Green Acre is located in the Alexandria Center for Life Science, a state-of-the-art building housing multiple science companies, and the building itself hosts weddings and other celebrations and conferences.

The center itself is pretty amazing, with lush gardens and a full outdoor dining, gathering and recreation area adjacent to the actual restaurant.

It’s pretty incredible. As you enter the parking lot, you pass the garden where many of Green Acre’s food is grown, and it’s open to visitors.

It’s definitely worth a stroll through the garden.

The kale plants have been adorably trimmed to look like palm trees, and they made excellent kale chips.

And I am glad they opted to let some of the artichokes bloom (even though they’re delicious), because the purple flowers are so beautiful.

The food itself is all fresh and organic, and we started off with a plate featuring a few of Green Acre’s special sides, including root fries topped with chilis and cotija cheese, a jar of pickled seasonal veggies, and a few bits of pickled pineapple and yellow beets, which were really delicious when sampled together.

In addition to the regular menu ….

… there are also daily specials. The special of the day when I visited with my food blogger friends, it was a light chicken Parmesan with zucchini noodles.

Although a stroll through the gardens mentally prepared me for the big lunch I was about to eat, I artfully dodged the waiter’s suggestion of a smoky and spicy tuna melt (it comes with jalapeno and smoked cheddar) or the “Havana Affair” panini, with slow-roasted pork shoulder, Oregon ham and Gruyère …

… yet still managed to get the least healthy salad option; the corn cobb salad. It was a fabulous (and huge!) arranged salad with egg, chicken, bleu cheese, avocado, bacon and greens, as well as a light-as-air roasted corn vinaigrette.

To me, the salad is a perfect example of seasonal California cuisine, right down to the summery corn flavor and accompanying pretzel roll.

Our table also got to split a couple of their specialty flatbread pizzas, prepared in the open-air restaurant’s brick oven. Above is the fig flatbread, which is also topped with bleu cheese and prosciutto, and below is the mushroom, with garlic, burrata and truffle oil. Both were excellent, with fresh cheeses and delicious greens.

Both Green Acre locations are open for breakfast and lunch only, but the Campus Pointe location also has Happy Hour Thursdays and Fridays, and is open for special occasions and events in the evenings and weekends. Check out http://www.greenacresd.com for more info.

April 30 is the grand opening party of Fresh Catch Fish Market & Grill in Hillcrest – from 5:30 to 9:30 tonight, you can enjoy complimentary tastings and free wine.

I got a sneak peek of a few of their specialties before the big event. The shop is full of fresh seafood offerings, right there in the window for your inspection when you walk in the door.

The menu is deeper than it looks … every type of fresh seafood they offer is available in a salad, sandwich or plate … making a decision is really, really hard.

But I managed. I seriously considered the oysters and the salmon burger, then waffled about a fish taco or some sea bass, when I finally settled on the shrimp mac and cheese.

I did not regret my choice. The shrimp mac and cheese was just the way I would make it at home – big, meaty shrimp, a thick, yet delicate creamy cheese sauce, and extra crumbs on top – served in a perfectly adorable teeny-tiny cast-iron skillet. (You know I would totally do that part!)

I also shared a salad of lump Blue Crab and shrimp.

The night I visited, they offered three different varieties of ceviche … red snapper / jalapeno, octopus and shrimp.

Fresh Catch Fish Market & Grill is located in the Hillcrest area, at 3650 5th Ave.

I’ve mentioned a number of times how lucky I am to live in San Diego, which has some of the best food and restaurants in the world. Locals get to take advantage of this bounty several times a year during San Diego Restaurant Week, where some of the best restaurants give a sample of their most groundbreaking dishes for a great value.

I was already planning to visit more than one of the restaurants this week, when McFarlane Promotions hooked up this awesome pre-SDRW deal for local food bloggers. I won a visit to Don Chido, a really authentic and trendy Mexican restaurant in the Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego.

I had already visited Don Chido once a few weeks ago for another event called the Toast of Downtown, where we got to sample small plates of food as well as each restaurant’s signature cocktails, and I really loved their lovely little street tacos.

This is one of those places where “handcrafted” is not just a slogan. You can taste it.

One of the best things about SDRW for me is to see what dishes the chefs choose to highlight. It’s even great to go to places where you’re already a regular, just to see what foods the staff thinks will make newbies want to come back again.

Don Chido actually had a whole new menu for SDRW. For just $20 per person (a steal for dinner in the Gaslamp District!) you get three amazing courses:

It definitely did not disappoint. Pozole, although traditionally pretty thin, was stuffed full of lots of hearty hominy and black beans, and the broth was obviously slow-simmered and well-spiced. You can also get it with chicken, but I kept mine vegetarian.

My boyfriend got the empanadas, which were stuffed with pollo adobado and cheese. The masa dough was also obviously fresh and homemade (as are the tortillas, and pretty much everything else at Don Chido), and the pollo adobado was hearty and saucy but not too heavy for the dough. That might seem like an easy balance to achieve, but anyone who as ever tried to make their own empanadas knows better.

For the main course, I got the Borrego en Mole Amarilla de Oaxaca, or stewed Colorado lamb shoulder with mole, rice and root vegetables.

It was so amazing! The mole was really flavorful, yet it still allowed for the lighter flavor of the stewed lamb shoulder to come through. The meat was piled on top of spicy rice and root vegetables and covered in a delicious sauce. If you order this, tell the waiter he can keep the knife — you won’t need it. In fact, if it wasn’t accompanied by crunchy fresh green beans, I don’t think you’d even need a fork.

The lamb is extremely tender and juicy, and you can practically eat it with a spoon.

So, I have this thing called Entrée Envy. It’s a completely untreatable foodie disease, and it manifests itself at great dinners and lunches like this.

I see a menu.

I narrow my choices down to two or three.

I settle on one.

Someone else orders another one of the two or three.

We get our food.

No matter how delicious my dish is, I also want the one I didn’t choose.

Note I did not say “instead.”

I said “also.”

I thoroughly enjoyed every bite of my stewed lamb. But my handsome boyfriend got one of the other dishes I was considering, the seafood enchiladas, and I had to have a taste or two. (Note about the photo: they come with beans and rice, but he’s allergic to beans so had to get rice only.)

These enchiladas were killer! Stuffed with scallops, shrimp, bites of fish and lots of cheese — and topped with a poblano cream sauce that made all of the rest of the ingredients come together beautifully.

I really can’t say enough about the poblano cream sauce. It’s not on any of Don Chido’s regular menu items, and when I spoke to the chef, she said it was a new sauce they came up with for this particular menu item — one that they will only have for SDRW.

The lovely chef was also kind enough to share: it’s just roasted garlic, roasted poblano peppers, cream, cheese, and salt and pepper. I will definitely be attempting to make this sauce for my next batch of homemade enchiladas, so I will let you know how it works out. In the meantime, I suggest you use your SDRW time to try it yourself at Don Chido. You won’t be disappointed: the way it combines with the seafood and the (obviously fresh and homemade) tortillas, it’s insane.

I say the tortillas were obviously fresh and homemade, as was the masa dough for the empanadas, because when you taste a freshly made tortilla, you just know. In this case, you will know for sure when you taste them.

There were only two options for dessert, so my honey and I got them both: the dulce de leche cheesecake had dulce de leche IN the cheesecake and then a spiced caramel sauce on top.

The almonds on top are also a nice crunch that blends really well with the cinnamon and salt in the caramel sauce.

The Mexican fried ice cream was a fabulous twist on the traditional: it has toasted coconut and corn flakes forming the crunchy shell, and it comes with a slightly sweet strawberry compote. They’re both pretty small in size, but after the other two courses, good luck finishing your dessert anyway.

The whole meal overall was amazing, yet understated. This is one of the best options I have seen on the SDRW menus in a really long time.

* Disclaimer: This was a sponsored review, but the thoughts and opinions are all my own.